Mapping of Heavy Metal Pollution in River System: A Scientometric Approach

Bioaccumulation and biotransformation of heavy metals cause serious pollution in aquatic ecosystems. This has attracted widespread attention to its negative effect on ecological and human health. In recent years, several studies have been done in this area. Among all the heavy metals, Cadmium (Cd) and lead (Pb) have been widely reported for their toxic effect. However, detailed research activity on these two pollutants in aquatic ecosystems has not been mapped. It is important to capture the key topics and domains in which research is happening. The present study attempts to address this gap. A detailed Scientometrics study was undertaken to capture the heavy metal pollution in river systems. The 33,414 research papers were identified from a topic search covering the period 2010 to 2021 from the ‘web-of-science’ database. The social network analysis approach was used for understanding the structure and dynamics of the research. The study identifies the following as major nodes in the network constructed from author keywords assigned to the research papers namely heavy metal (primarily lead, cadmium), bioremediation, carbon nanotube, and sequential extraction. The thematic areas were identified as ecological risk, adsorption, atmospheric deposition, and potential ecological risk as major domains of research namely. The study has implications for research assessment and alerting the community and policymakers to the concerns about the adverse effect of these metals on aquatic ecosystems.